The research topic is the relationship between family size and ability to afford children in contemporary United States. Bearing children clearly reduces the wife's employment and earnings, but little is known about what happens to husband's employment and total family income during family formation, how paid childcare is related to a couple's employment patterns, or what is the direction of causation between these variables. The research uses nine annual interviews from the national Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate these issues using two distinct approaches: 1. Investigate whether wife's employment and family income are causes as well as consequences of family size, using both static cross-sectional and dynamic simultaneous-equations models. 2. Investigate the patterns of influence of parents' income, education, and attitudes on their children's own economic achievements, fertility, and attitudes. This approach uses interviews with both young, recently married couples and their parents.